1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an exchangeable storage apparatus with exchangeable recording medium to be used for computers, personal computers, and portable information terminals, and so on. More particularly, this invention relates to a Flexible Disk Drive, a recording medium drive actuator, a head drive actuator, and a recording medium cartridge to be used for the flexible disk drive.
2. Description of the Related Arts
FIG. 80 is part of a cross sectional view showing, for instance, a conventional flexible disk drive (hereinafter referred to as the FDD) disclosed in the Japan Patent Examination Hei 06-119699, of a storage for which a recording medium is exchangeable. Especially, the example given in the figure shows a 3.5 -inch FDD wherein a recording medium is housed in a so called recording medium cartridge which is consisting of a hard case with a shutter. Also, FIG. 81 is a cross sectional view of the FDD, and FIG. 82 is a top view of FIG. 81. FIGS. 81 and 82 show the relationship between the recording medium cartridge and a positioning means for positioning the recording medium cartridge.
In the figures, an FDD body 1, a read/write head 2, a carriage 3 supporting read/write head 2, and a head arm 4 are shown. A head drive actuator 5 that drives read/write head 2 by driving carriage 3 is provided with a step motor 6, a lead screw 7, a needle 8, and a guide rod (not shown). This needle 8 is engaged with lead screw 7. A frame 10, a mounting part 11 that mounts an external special slot 80, a guide groove 12, and a cover (shield) 13 are also shown. A circuit board 14, a cartridge holder 15, a cam follower 16, a shutter opener 17 are shown. Cartridge holder 15 gets engaged with cam follower 16 and shutter opener 17, and so on. A slide cam part 20 is made up of a cam groove 21 and an eject button 22 and engaged with an eject lever 23.
A recording medium cartridge 30 is constructed by a recording medium 31 and a cartridge case 32 having an upper shell 32a and a lower shell 32b. Recording medium 31 is supported by a hub 33, and cartridge case 32 is provided with a shutter 34, a window 35, and recording medium 31. The cartridge case 32 has a protect hole 32c so that information would not be erased once it is written. Also in cartridge case 32, a resin slide part material 36 is installed to make write protect when write-protect hole 32c is in open state and to write information in closed state.
A recording medium drive actuator 40 rotates recording medium 31, and composed of a circuit board 14, a stator 41, rotor 42, a drive pin 43, a chucking magnet 44, a housing 45, bearing 46, a stator yoke 47, and a spindle shaft 48. On one part of circumference of rotor 42, an index magnet 39a is attached to detect the position of rotating recording medium 31 as the index signal. An index sensor 39b is installed on circuit board 14 to detect the index signal on the position opposite to index magnet 39a. A disk-in switch 37 to detect that recording medium 31 has been set to read/write position and write protect switch 38 to detect write protect in recording medium 31 are secured as well. For index sensor 39b, normally hole elements and so on are used, and is often mounted on a case (not shown) in which the position of the index sensor can be mechanically adjusted.
For write-protect switch 38, a so-called push switch is often used. When information can be written, switch end 38a of write-protect switch 38 is pushed downward by slide part material 36. Conversely, when data write is inhibited, switch end 38a is in free state and placed higher than when it is pushed down.
Most disk-in switch 37 and write protect switch 38 are of the same shape or uniform shape. When recording medium cartridge 30 is set to read/write position, in the so-called load state, end 37a of disk-in switch 37 is pushed down by lower shell 32b of cartridge case 32 or by slide part material 36 which opens or closes write-protect hole 32c. When recording medium 31 is in read/write disabled state, on the other hand, in the so-called unload state, switch end 37a is lifted up.
The relationship between stator 41 and rotor 42 is the so-called outer rotor type and stator 41 is positioned in the center and rotor 42 is positioned around it. An interface connector 70, an external special slot 80, a mounting screw 81, an external cable 82, an external connector 83 are also shown. Generally, FDD body 1 is secured with mounting screw 81 and so on, for instance, on special slot 80 of a personal computer or an information processing terminal, and so on. Interface connecter 70 is engaged with a connecter 83 connected with a flexible cable 82 from the external part.
Now, operation is explained with figures.
An explanation is given concerning the state transition from the so-called unload state in which data read or write on recording medium 31 is disabled, to the load status in which data read and write is enabled.
When recording medium cartridge 30 is inserted into FDD body 1, it is held by cartridge holder 15 and lifted up by cam groove 21 and cam follower 16 of slide cam part 20. Thus, it is inserted at the height higher than spindle shaft 48 in the center of recording medium drive actuator 40. Next, when the center of recording medium cartridge 30 has come near spindle shaft 48, shutter 34 is opened by shutter opener 17. Further, eject lever 23 is rotated. The latch of slide cam part 20 is released. And cartridge holder 15 is lowered by cam groove 21. At the same time, since head arm 4 having read/write head 2 is pressed on the frame side touching cartridge holder 15, the head arm 4 rotates. When recording medium cartridge 30 is lowered to a certain position, two holes 33a and 33b made in hub 33 which is part of recording medium 31, get engaged with spindle shaft 48 and drive pin 43, thereby positioning of recording medium 31 is performed. The hole 33a that engages with spindle shaft 48 is square, and hole 33b that engages with drive pin 43 is partly extended in the radius direction, eccentricity works in the radius direction shown in the arrow H by the rotation of drive pin 43 to hub 33, thereby eliminating backlash that generates in hole 33a which engages with spindle shaft 48. Also, the hub 33 is made of magnetic material. It is sucked and retained (chucked) by chucking magnet 44. The chucking magnet 44 is a means for transferring recording medium drive force, provided with the recording medium drive actuator 40. After that, carriage 3 holding read/write head 2 is driven by head drive actuator 5. When read/write head 2 is moved to the recording surface of recording medium 31, reading or writing data on recording medium 31 is made possible, thereupon completing load state.
Then, the operation of load state to unload state of recording medium cartridge 30 is explained next.
By pushing eject button 22 down to the predetermined position, cartridge holder 15 lifts up along cam groove 21. On its way upward, when cartridge holder 15 touches and rotates head arm 4, upper and lower read/write head 2 separate from recording medium 31. Together with lifted cartridge holder 15, when recording medium cartridge 30 reaches the position at which it can jump over spindle shaft 48, shutter 34 gets disengaged from shutter opener 17. As shutter 34 is closed, cartridge holder 15 is ejected by shutter opener 17. Cartridge holder 15 is kept from lowering by slide cam part 20 and the latch of eject lever 23. As head arm 4 maintains the open state of both read/write heads 2, unload state has made complete.
FIG. 83 is a cross sectional view showing inside of a conventional head drive actuator 5 of FIG. 80. A step motor 6 in the figure is referred to as the so-called claw-pole type motor. It is constructed with a radially magnetized cylindrical rotor 61, and a claw-pole stator 65 is positioned on the outer circumference of this cylindrical rotor 61, and circular stator coil 66 is wound around further on the outer circumference. To output torque necessary to drive carriage 3 with step motor 6 in such construction, the thickness of step motor 6 must be about 10.0 mm.
FIG. 84 shows another example of related art. It shows exchangeable storage like IC memory card and so on, disclosed in, for instance, Japan Patent Examination HEI 5-181565.
In the figure, an IC memory card 1a, a magnetic disk storage 1b, a slot guide 11b, an interface connector 70a of IC memory card 1a, an interface connector 70b of magnetic disk storage 1b, an IC memory card slot 80a, and a portable information terminal 85a for a personal computer and so on, are shown. Generally, this type of IC memory cards is also called the PC card, and its standard is set by the Personal Computer Memory Card Association (PCMCIA), an organization for extended IC card standardization in the United States. The width of the card by the PCMCIA is uniformly 54.0 mm. For thickness, there are the following sizes:
Type-1: 3.3 mm thick
Type-2: 5.0 mm thick
Type-3: 10.5 mm thick
IC memory card 1 a is currently used for general purpose for portable information terminal 85a. For interface connector 70a, the standard corresponding to the type-2 with thickness 5.0 mm is used.
Problems to be Solved by the Invention
Recently, as the exchangeable storage to be used for portable information terminal 85a, IC memory card 1 a is often used as it is compact and convenient to carry with. However, IC memory card 1 a has the following problems.
1) The recording medium in the IC memory card is the IC memory. Because the IC memory itself cannot be replaced, the IC memory card itself must be replaced.
(2) Because the IC memory is expensive at present, the price of IC memory card is also high.
(3) Due to the reasons stated above (1) and (2), using an IC memory card for the replacement of a recording medium results in high cost.
Because of this, there is a movement toward using FDDs, with its lowpriced recording medium cartridge 30 and easy replacement of the recording medium, instead of the IC memory cards by making FDDs smaller and thinner. However, FDDs must be matched to the type-2 standard size (5.0 mm in thickness and 54.0 mm in width) of the PCMCIA standard, and be manufactured according to the size of the slots to which IC memory card 1 a of the PCMCIA type-2 standard is to be inserted. The following problems must be tackled.
(1) When inserting recording medium cartridge 30 into the FDD, shutter 34 is opened in the direction of Y by shutter opener 17 as the cartridge 30 is inserted in the direction of arrow X as shown in FIG. 82. At this time, a head arm 4 must move up and down significantly because read/write head 2 jumps over the part shown as S in the figure. It is therefore difficult to make FDDs thinner, as the device thickness of FDD must at least include recording medium cartridge 30, read/write head 2, head arm 4, and carriage 3.
(2) Due to the chucking mechanism of recording medium (disk) 31, in which hub 33 engages with spindle shaft 48 and drive pin 43, recording medium cartridge 30 must be moved up and down more than the engagement length of hub 33 and spindle shaft 48 or drive pin 43 for loading and unloading recording medium cartridge 30. This thickness enabling this perpendicular movement must be secured in FDD. Because total thickness of spindle shaft 48 and recording medium cartridge 30 must at least be secured, the thinning of FDD is difficult.
(3) In order to thin the FDD under the current structure of head drive actuator 5, the turns of stator coil 66 should be reduced. However, it is difficult to obtain torque necessary for driving carriage 3.
(4) In order to thin the FDD under the current structure of recording medium drive actuator 40, the turns of stator 41 should be reduced. However, it is difficult to obtain torque necessary for driving recording medium 31.
(5) It was difficult to thin conventional FDDs and recording medium cartridges because the height as the storage and the height as the recording medium cartridge were required so that ends 37a and 38a of disk-in switch 37 and writeprotect switch 38 can move up and down.
(6) In addition, because index sensor 39b is made of hole elements, a certain area was required. Rotor 42 must have an area on which to mount opposing index magnet 39a, making the device compact difficult. And index sensor 39b that detect the mechanical position of recording medium 31 must be assembled and adjusted so that the position of recording magnet 31 and the positions of index magnet 39a and index sensor 39b agree when recording medium 31 is mounted on rotor 42 by chucking magnet 44, and so on.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of this invention to overcome problems associated with making the FDD for which recording media can be exchanged smaller and thinner, and to achieve the FDD by which the IC memory card can be substituted. Furthermore, it is another object of this invention to achieve the recording medium drive actuator, head drive actuator, and recording medium cartridge to be used for the thinned FDD.
According to one aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising: a cabinet to be inserted into and retained by a card slot provided for an information processing apparatus;
an inserting and ejecting means for freely inserting or ejecting a recording medium cartridge containing a recording medium into or from the cabinet;
a head built in the cabinet for making an access to the recording medium;
a head drive actuator built in the cabinet for moving the head and determining a position of the head;
a recording medium drive actuator built in the cabinet for driving the recording medium;
a positioning means built in the cabinet for positioning the recording medium being inserted to the predetermined position;
a driving force transfer means built in the cabinet for transferring a driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the recording medium; and
an information transmission means provided for the cabinet for transmitting information between the information processor and the recording medium.
According to another aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising:
a head which reads and writes data on the recording medium having a driven part for rotation and storing information;
a head drive actuator that moves the head and determines a position of the head:
a recording medium drive actuator that drives the recording medium;
a driving force transfer means for transferring the driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the driven part of the recording medium;
a positioning means for positioning the recording medium to a predetermined position; and
a head unload means for unloading the head toward the direction of the recording medium drive actuator while the recording medium is not being inserted.
According to another aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising:
a head which reads and writes data on the rotating recording medium having a driven part for rotation and storing information;
a head drive actuator which moves the head and determines a position of the head;
a positioning means for positioning the recording medium being inserted to a predetermined position;
a recording medium drive actuator having a stator formed by installing a block inside a stator core, wherein the block is made up of a plurality of center cores equivalent to the number of drive phases and by inserting a cylindrical coil bobbin wound with a coil into the center core, and a rotor provided inside the stator and drives the recording medium; and
a driving force transfer: means for transferring the driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the driven part of the recording medium.
According to another aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising:
a head that reads and writes data on a recording medium having a driven part for rotation and storing information;
a recording medium drive actuator that drives the recording medium;
a positioning means for positioning the recording medium being inserted to a predetermined position;
a driving force transfer means for transferring a driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the driven part of the recording medium; and
a head drive actuator including a rotor having a cylindrical rotation part and giving the driving force to the head, and a stator installed at opposite sides of an outer circumference of the cylindrical rotation part of the rotor and having a coil wound cylindrically along an elongated direction of the rotor.
According to another aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising:
a head that reads and writes data on a recording medium having a driven part and storing information, and wherein an unload amount of the head when the recording medium is inserted and ejected is within a thickness of a recording medium cartridge holding the recording medium;
a head drive actuator which moves the head and determines a position of the head;
a recording medium drive actuator which drives the recording medium;
a positioning means for positioning the recording medium being inserted to a predetermined position; and
a driving force transfer means for transferring a driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the driven part of the recording medium.
According to another aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising:
a head that reads and writes data on a recording medium having a positioning part for positioning and having a driven part for rotation and storing information, and wherein an unload amount of the head when the recording medium is inserted and removed is within a thickness of a recording medium cartridge holding the recording medium;
a head drive actuator including a rotor having a cylindrical rotation part and giving the driving force to the head, and a stator installed at opposite sides of an outer circumference of the cylindrical rotation part of the rotor and having a coil wound cylindrically along the elongated direction of the rotor;
a recording medium drive actuator including a stator having a stator core and a block inside the stator core, the block having a plurality of center cores equivalent to the number of drive phases, and a cylindrical coil bobbin wound with a coil inserted into the center core, and a rotor installed inside the stator to drive the recording medium;
a head unload means for unloading the head toward the direction of the recording medium drive actuator while the recording medium is not being inserted;
a positioning means which is retractably projected to the recording medium being inserted for positioning the recording medium to a predetermined position by engaging with the positioning part of the recording medium; and
a driving force transfer means for transferring a driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the driven part of the recording medium.
According to another aspect of this invention, An exchangeable storage apparatus comprising:
a head that reads and writes data on a recording medium having a positioning part for positioning and having a driven part for rotation and storing information;
a head drive actuator that moves the head and determines the position of the head;
a driving force transfer means for transferring a driving force of the recording medium drive actuator to the driven part of the recording medium;
a first frame that supports the head drive actuator and the recording medium drive actuator;
a retaining means for holding the recording medium inserted from outside; a second frame that supports the retaining means;
a frame rotation part which supports an end of the first frame and an end of the second frame for free rotation and makes the second frame further rotate so as to open the second frame against the first frame;
a head unload means for unloading the head toward the opening direction of the second frame opened against the first frame with the frame rotation part; and
a positioning means provided for the first frame for positioning the recording medium inserted to the retaining means to a predetermined position by engaging with the positioning part of the recording medium when the first frame and the second frame are closed.
According to another aspect of this invention, A recording medium drive actuator comprising: a stator having a stator core and a block inside the stator core, the block having a plurality of center cores equivalent to the number of driving phases and a cylindrical coil bobbin wound with a coil inserted into the center core; and
a rotor installed inside the stator to drive the recording medium.
According to another aspect of this invention, A head drive actuator comprising:
a rotor having a cylindrical rotation part and that giving a driving force to a head; and
a stator installed at opposite sides to an outer circumference of the cylindrical rotation part of the rotor and cylindrically wound with a coil in the elongated direction of the rotor.
According to another aspect of this invention, A recording medium cartridge comprising:
a disk-shaped recording medium;
a case housing the recording medium;
a window for exposing a part of the recording medium from the case;
a shutter provided for the case for closing and exposing the window;
a latch movable in the direction perpendicular to the closing and opening direction of the shutter; and
a band that links the shutter with the latch.
According to another aspect of this invention, A recording medium cartridge comprising: a lower shell and an upper shell;
two conductive metal plates exposed on the surface of one of the lower shell and the upper shell; and
the slide member for switching connection of two conductive metal plates.
According to another aspect of this invention, A recording medium cartridge comprising: a disk recording medium; a case for storing the recording medium; means for detecting a fixed position of the recording medium in one rotation, the means for detecting a fixed position being provided in the case.
According to another aspect of this invention, A recording medium cartridge comprising:
a disk recording medium;
a lower shell and an upper shell for storing the recording medium; and
a notch formed at part of the circumference of the recording medium.
According to another aspect of this invention, A method for using a card type recording medium slot of an information processor comprising steps of:
(a) mounting a storage apparatus, which is able to exchange a recording medium, on the card type recording medium slot under a condition that the storage apparatus can be easily dismount;
(b) inserting the recording medium and setting the position to the storage apparatus;
(c) accessing the recording medium, whose position is set, using a card recording medium interface mounted on the card type recording medium slot.
Other objects features, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.